Thousands of gaming fans packed a Paris arena on Sunday for the biggest e-sports event of the year. The Chinese team FunPlus Phoenix defeated the European outfit G2 Esports with a 3-0 shutout

With more than US$1 million up for grabs, China’s FunPlus Phoenix (FPX) swept the tournament, beating Europe’s G2 Esports in all three games before a crowd of over 15,000 fans in Paris.

The game, developed 10 years ago by Los Angeles-based Riot Games, sees teams of players face off in a virtual battle arena with one main goal: destroying their opponents’ “Nexus” base.

After strong showings earlier in the series, the Europeans were the favourites to win the grand final of the 10th edition of the championship, held this year in Paris’ AccorHotels Arena.

After strong showings earlier in the series, the Europeans were the favourites to win the grand final of the 10th edition of the championship, held this year in Paris’ AccorHotels Arena.

However, the Chinese team smashed European hopes of ending Asia’s supremacy with their victory.

South Korea has won five of the six previous championships, with Chinese team Invictus Gaming winning last year.

“FPX is a really good team, so even if we had played better it would have been rough,” G2 e-sports coach Fabian Lohmann, whose gaming name is “GrabbZ”, told reporter.

Along with Dota 2, Fortnite and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, League of Legends is one of the most popular games in the fast growing e-sports - video game competitions.

The European and Chinese teams in Sunday’s finals were composed of five players each, all male and aged between 19 and 24.

The tournament had a prize pool this year of about US$6.5 million, making it the third-biggest after Dota 2’s The International and the Fortnite World Cup.

The winning team got almost US$835,000, with the runners-up receiving more than US$300,000.

Riot Games said last year’s championship attracted close to 100 million viewers, putting it in the same ballpark as the National Football League’s Super Bowl, the biggest American TV event.

Sponsors include French luxury brand LVMH’s Louis Vuitton, US payment giant MasterCard and Chinese electronics company Oppo.

Nicolo Laurent, CEO of Riot Games, the game developer, said he could not imagine in 2009 that they would grow so fast, with gamers spending billions of hours in their fantasy universe.

“We had very humble ambitions when we started League of Legends. Our initial business plan said 20,000 concurrent users. Now we have millions. We never anticipated that,” he said. “The first few years, it was a struggle. We always said, ‘We’re kind of building the plane while in the air.’”

Now, the plane is soaring, much to the chagrin of some parents who do not like to see their kids glued to screens. Laurent is convinced such reservations will pass.

“I’m sure 50 years ago my parents were fighting their parents about rock ‘n’ roll,” he said. “It’s the same story every generation ... A new entertainment form comes, and the old generation doesn’t believe it. And then they move on, they age, they die, and now it’s part of our lives. I think exactly the same will happen with gaming, at a much faster speed.”